Eulogy
by Domino Nermandi
Summary: The end of the Animorphs... and its not what you might think...


Eulogy  
  
Marco spotted her from across the room and his blood boiled to a stop. He   
allowed himself one moment of despair, before that bright ray of light from A to B was   
all that he saw.  
The greater good… He whispered to himself, not really needing to be   
convinced. He knew what he had to do.  
His mother would never recognize him, he was a gorilla, a far cry from the child   
she'd abandoned years ago. His mother wouldn't recognize him if he stood in front of   
her as a human, much less in this shape. Well, she might, but he doubted it. He was   
older now, in so many ways.  
Blood had already been drawn and it ran down Marco's leathery skin as he loped   
across the room at an awkward pace, his ham sized fists swinging at his sides when he   
wasn't using them to slam a Hork-Bajir out of the way.  
She wasn't looking at him, her chocolate brown eyes were looking through   
crosshairs as she pointed the dracon beam she held at Tobias. With only a whisper of air   
betraying his actions, Marco's hand slammed down on the dracon beam, and he heard a   
brittle snap as he broke his mothers' wrist.  
Visser One snarled in pain and unbridled fury. "They'll kill you." She informed   
him, "You'll never make it out of here alive!" she told him triumphantly.  
I know. He said sadly, and her eyes clouded over.  
"Who…?" She stared at him quizzically. This is how he had wanted it to happen,   
but he never thought it COULD happen. He wanted her to know that he was the one. He   
was the one that was going to release her from her prison. The last thing she would know   
is that he'd saved her.  
The battle raged on around them, but they were both oblivious.  
"My God…" Tears blurred her vision, "My baby…Marco…Is that you?" The   
change that came over her was too complete, the best actress couldn't compete with that   
devestated, hopeful wistfulness in her eyes. It was her.  
Yes. She smiled gently, nodded.  
"Do it before she comes back, I want to go being the one in control. If you get   
me…"  
I get Visser One.  
"Right." She smiled.  
I love you. He didn't know where he found the strength to say it.  
"I love you too, precious. Tell your father I—Ah!" she cringed, "Quickly!   
Quickly, please…" she looked up at him with pleading eyes.  
It was a curious feeling. He was a marionette, suspended by strings, his hands   
rising into the air and plunging down on their own accord. Smashing his mother's skull   
as he snapped her neck.  
Good-bye. he whispered. Then plunged back into the battle.  
  
A few months later…  
  
Tobias' death was quiet, just like him. He'd gotten too close to the blade of a   
Hork-Bajir and had simply gotten his slender windpipe slit. He might've been able to   
demorph, but he was knocked unconscious as he hit the floor…and he never woke up.  
Rachel saw his still body across that raging battlefield of desks and office   
equipment and began shrieking his name. I remember those bloodcurdling cries, I had   
thought the very blood in my veins would freeze.  
"Tobias!" Over and over, some perverse plea, some kind of twisted prayer out of   
her mind for mercy. Don't you get it? Rachel, honey, I figured it out, why didn't you?   
There is no mercy. There is justice, yes, sometimes. But no mercy, not for us.   
Not for any of us.  
She was spectacular in that battle. And all the other battles after that, come to   
think of it. Furious and raving, now not half-crazed, but fully insane and out for blood.   
You had to be careful not to come near that frothing, furry whirlwind. She was just as   
likely to rip your limbs off as she was theirs.   
She really did damage. She let none of them retreat, but went deeper into the   
complex, ripping out hearts, leaving trails of intestines behind her, blood coating her   
shaggy fur.  
We found her later. It wasn't hard, you just followed the gore right back to where   
it had all started. Right back to where, for Tobias, it had all ended. Her long blond hair   
hung around her, just as bloody and tattered as the room.  
She was singing…somehow. Well, in retrospect, the only part of it that was   
singing was the fact that she hit notes. Her voice was scratchy through her tears, and the   
lines were blurred by sobs.  
"Hush a bye, don't you cry, go to sleep a little baby,  
When you wake, you will have, all the pretty little horses…"  
She sat there, stroking his fur. In death he was very impressive, a massive   
leopard, stretched out, museum quality, leaking what was left of him onto the floor.  
"Pretty birdie, such a pretty bird, so lovely…" Her voice caught, like ripped fabric   
catching on a nail, on that word "love".  
It was so abrupt, her voice breaking into that wail. Ax had left, so had Jake, they   
were scouting the compound, making sure we'd taken care of everything. But Cassie and   
I remained. We tried to make her leave, but nothing worked. We begged, pleaded,   
bribed, coerced, cajoled. She merely wailed.  
Then she stopped.  
The silence was eerie.  
Then…a whisper.  
"We won." A pause, then: "Didn't you hear me? We won." I had to strain to hear   
her, "You can be human now. We can go to school. Get married. Aren't you happy,   
Tobias?" she pleaded, "Aren't you happy, sweetheart, lover, cupcake? AREN"T YOU   
HAPPY???" she demanded. "THIS IS WHAT I WANTED!!!" she screamed.  
"THIS IS WHAT I WANTED!!!!" She wrapped her arms around his torn bloody   
neck, and I knew she was talking about him.  
"This is what I wanted this is what I wanted this is what is wanted…" her voice   
trailed off and she whispered into his tufted ear, as if confiding a secret.  
"You were what I wanted." She gasped in a breath, "You are all I wanted." She   
began to sob. But it was healthy this time, no insanity or glazed eyes, just grief. Tears   
streamed down her face. I turned to a shocked, numb Cassie whose eyes had receded   
miles since I'd seen them last.  
"Let's get her out of here."  
"Yeah…"  
"You get her…I'll get, ah…" I swallowed.  
"Thank-you, Marco." She said, professional courtesy, I guess. No one really likes   
handling corpses. The morphing back to gorilla was instinctive, empty. No thought for   
anything. Not yet. Wait until they can't hear you to scream and wail and rip your hair   
out. You can't let them know how you really feel. That will never do.  
To the gorilla his body was light, fragile, but I knew what I held in my hands was   
one of nature's finest works of art.  
No one said a word when we buried him.  
As far as I know, none of his relatives know he's missing.  
Or if they did notice, none of them care.  
I came back to the spot, in the mountains, next to the pass for the Valley of the   
Hork-Bajir, one week after I'd visited my mothers' grave. My real mothers' body was   
disposed of, how I don't know, after I killed her a few months back. But, it felt   
comforting to visit her headstone at least. See her name etched in something permanent.   
Anyway, I took a few of her flowers and laid them on his grave.  
I suppose it'll do until I can get him that metal.  
Huh. I guess I'll never change.  
Always joking…  
Medals?  
Hah.  
  
We get scars.  
  
Years later…  
  
The day we won was a dark day.   
It was surprisingly easy. The Andalites supplied us with a ground force to   
command (the "command" part came grudgingly, only with the sponsorship of Aximili)   
and proceeded to blockade the Yeerks, to keep any supplies or troops from landing on   
Earth. After that, it was only a matter of systematically wiping them out. After a while,   
the Yeerks started coming to us to surrender.  
Jake nearly danced a jig when Tom walked into the Andalite camp and knelt in   
submission. All the humans now know about the infestation, and are afraid, after the   
fact. But at least now they are wary.   
The president was busy signing an intergalactic treaty, the hearing for Ax had just   
been settled, he was declared a hero and made an honorary prince until he finished his   
academy, then he would get to be a real one.  
As it turns out, the Yeerks defeat on Earth led to their complete downfall. The   
Yeerks kept on losing troops, trying to reinforce Earth, and ended up losing galaxies.  
The date was September 12, 2004. Sounds like a short time, but you'd be   
surprised how slow time passes in hell.  
The entire Yeerk Empire surrendered to Andalite will that day. There is still   
much debate on what to do with them, but all of the Yeerks who urged peace were given   
asylum and have begun living in willing donors of bodies. They have actually made a lot   
of progress in the psychology fields, they are diligent workers and obsessed with   
redeeming themselves. They're our little bit of good out of all this horror, I guess.  
I had gone to tell my best friend, Rachel, the news.  
But she'd found out first.  
You see, she'd never really recovered after Tobias died. I think that she died right   
along with him that day. Her soul gave up, but the rest of her knew there was a battle to   
fight and stuck it out.  
But I guess she decided that her work was done.  
The bloody razor blades on the bathroom floor sent chills up my spine.  
I knew what had happened, but I refused to accept I'd lost another comrade. Lost   
another friend.  
"Rachel? Rachel? It's me, Cassie. Are you here?" I swallowed, then looked   
around the corner into the bathroom.  
There, in the tub, was a fully clothed Rachel, dressed in her morphing suit,   
clutching her Medal of Honor. Her glazed eyes stared at the ceiling. The tub was still   
running, and pinkish liquid spilled over the sides and onto my boots.  
"Jake!!" I screamed the first name that came to mind. They had stationed us all in   
this little corridor on the newly built Andalite flagship orbiting Earth. The only place   
they had on the ship that had anemities like bathtubs.  
"JAKE!!! Oh, god…. JAAAAKE!"  
"What?" His brown hair was mussed, his eyes were wild, "We won Cassie, we…"   
he was breathless with excitement, his chest heaved. He had run all the way from   
command just to tell me. My mind catalogued this as a sweet thing to do as tears dripped   
from my eyes.  
"Cassie? Honey…" He stepped towards me…then stopped. "Oh…" he looked   
down at my feet, at the bloody razor blades.  
"No…" he whispered, anguished, knowing, shaking his head, "No…"  
I could only nod.  
"Come here." He opened his arms, but I refused. I turned my eyes back to my   
best friend.  
"What are you so afraid of, Jake." I asked him, with a voice so calm it was cold,   
"You've seen so many already, what difference does one corpse make?"  
He stepped towards me on unsteady legs, without looking where I was staring, he   
wrapped his arms around me. Finally, he looked at her. Her gashed wrists… she'd left   
no note. Typical Rachel, leaving us in suspense, eternally the diva, eternally the drama   
queen.   
"Let's go." He whispered, after forever had passed.  
So I went.  
  
Decades later…  
  
Aximili called me "Prince" no longer. Now he was one himself.  
He was old now. I'm approaching sixty, as is my wife Cassie, and my still best   
friend, Ambassador/General Marco. While we whittle away our hours around animals   
and our family, Marco traipses about the galaxy, putting right all the wrongs, visiting,   
meeting with Andalite dignitaries. Erek the Chee helps him sometimes, but we don't see   
much of them anymore, they kind of go where needed.  
Ax flew a fleet around the galaxy, searching for new races to bring into the   
galactic alliance that the Yeerk threat spawned. He was the best at what he did, Prince   
Elfangor had been dwarfed by his younger brother, they said. Someone had thought it a   
compliment, and told Aximili. They probably still have the scars to show for it.  
It was a normal, routine flight. It was a new race, but the Andalites had sent out   
the welcome beacons, thought the race was only about a level 4, what humans were about   
a century ago. No real threat.  
Aximili never got a chance to issue an order, the entire fleet was incinerated by an   
odd ray of light that shot out from the planet.  
No one goes NEAR that quadrant of space anymore, needless to say.  
There is a nice memorial for him on his planet. The Andalites mourned for weeks   
after that, and some never really recovered. Thank God Tobias wasn't alive, he would   
have hopped on the nearest ship and tried to blow that whole system out of the sky.  
I guess now it's down to three Animorphs.  
Marco.  
Me, Jake.  
And My Wife, Cassie.  
  
Tobias…Rachel…Aximili…  
  
Somewhere, somewhen, where even the Ellimist can't reach, I hope they know   
we miss them terribly.  
  
About a century later…  
  
There really is nothing more to say that you need to know, really. Cassie and   
Jake, pretty much died at an obscenely old age. Jake died first, of a heart failure, in his   
sleep, and Cassie followed a few years later, found out on her front porch, her rocking   
chair still going after her heart had stopped.  
Marco? Marco still plows on. I can't tell you why. Everyone wants to know   
why, at 200, Marco still looks sixty. But that's classified information.  
My race helps out whenever we can. I pretty much stick with Marco, help him   
out, keep him company. The two of us are the only ones left. Well, I don't know if I   
count, but Marco insists I do.  
Don't worry, the two of us? We'll be here years yet. Trying to fix what's broken,   
trying to keep our memories alive and, in my case, still trying to kill off some of them.  
But when the end comes, and it will, Marco will join the rest of them.  
What, me? You're worried about little old Erek the Chee?  
Don't. After they are well and truly done, I'll step into another story.  
Maybe this time, the story will be mine.  
  
A millennia later…  
  
The girl was dressed in the simple clothing of any young child. Her face was   
streaked with dirt as she explored the rambling hills and abrupt ravines that dotted the   
property. Her mother galloped about next to her, bluish-tan fur rippling in the wind,   
looking down at her human child.  
Do you like it, Alondra?  
"Oh, yes, it's perfect."  
They paused at an unpolluted stream.  
"Thank goodness they thought to preserve the Earth, it's so pretty here."  
Yes, we were lucky, they finally allowed people to come back and populate it   
after so long.  
"But who would have wanted to live here a hundred years ago anyway? Can you   
imagine the stench?"  
Mother and daughter both laughed at the ridiculous image of the poor former   
inhabitants of Earth with their full body suits and gas masks.  
We've come a long way. Alondra's mother whispered to herself.  
They both drank, Alondra kneeling to cup the crystal clear water in her hands, her   
mother pausing to put a dainty hoof in the water.  
Suddenly, Alondra caught a glint of metal peeking out from under the silt.  
"What's that?" Alondra asked, even as she worked to clear away the mud.  
I'm not sure, sweetheart. Be careful of it!  
Alondra read, painstakingly,   
  
"In honor of the Animorphs. In commemoration of their sacrifice. 2005."  
  
"What does that mean?"  
2005…Oh! Probably something about the Yeerk War, I think…I can't be   
sure…  
"The Yeerk War? What was that?"  
  
And the wheel turns…  



End file.
